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Post by Desert Dweller on Jan 26, 2024 22:21:57 GMT -5
There's a remake of Road House coming out soon, with Jake Gyllenhaal and Daniela Melchior, and all I can think is that now Bill Murray is going to have to track down and befriend Daniela Melchior's significant other. Maybe he should turn it around this time and start calling whoever Gyllenhaal is with.
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Post by Desert Dweller on Jan 27, 2024 21:56:53 GMT -5
Had an older woman tell me today (online) she didn't like the music in "The Holdovers" because it didn't have 60s and 70s music in it. And there was too much Christmas music.
I said it did, and listed the songs from the 60s/70s. Also reminded her that it's a Christmas movie.
She said "not to dispute you, but that what wasn't what was playing in the 70s when I was in college. It should have been Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell and CSN."
It's probably hopeless to try to explain to this lady how music is used in film, right?
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Post by Roy Batty's Pet Dove on Jan 28, 2024 16:04:16 GMT -5
Had an older woman tell me today (online) she didn't like the music in "The Holdovers" because it didn't have 60s and 70s music in it. And there was too much Christmas music. I said it did, and listed the songs from the 60s/70s. Also reminded her that it's a Christmas movie. She said "not to dispute you, but that what wasn't what was playing in the 70s when I was in college. It should have been Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell and CSN." It's probably hopeless to try to explain to this lady how music is used in film, right? ”But what is the physical source of the music, and why can’t the characters seem to hear it? When I was in college in the ‘70s, recorded music came from radios and record players, and we could hear it if it was being played at an audible volume.”
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Post by Desert Dweller on Jan 28, 2024 19:32:45 GMT -5
Had an older woman tell me today (online) she didn't like the music in "The Holdovers" because it didn't have 60s and 70s music in it. And there was too much Christmas music. I said it did, and listed the songs from the 60s/70s. Also reminded her that it's a Christmas movie. She said "not to dispute you, but that what wasn't what was playing in the 70s when I was in college. It should have been Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell and CSN." It's probably hopeless to try to explain to this lady how music is used in film, right? ”But what is the physical source of the music, and why can’t the characters seem to hear it? When I was in college in the ‘70s, recorded music came from radios and record players, and we could hear it if it was being played at an audible volume.”
I did remind her that a lot of the Christmas music in the film is being used diegetically. She seemed to get that. She's Jewish and just hates Christmas music. I hate Christmas music, too, so I sympathized. But I would expect a film set at Christmas to have Christmas music in it.
I did briefly explain that directors, film composers and music supervisors don't really like using ubiquitous pop hits in their films because A. they are often expensive to license and B. their use can take the audience out of the film. She did seems to understand this, and someone else chimed in to say, "Wow, I never thought about that, but it's true. My mind does usually wander to where else I heard that song, and I often miss the film plot." This seemed to work.
Edited to add: As an example of how film/tv doesn't need to use the biggest, most popular songs in order to convey the time period, I cited a tv series I know she watched, "Mad Men", and asked if she knew how many times the Beatles were heard on that show. That also seemed to get the point across.
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Post by Desert Dweller on Jan 28, 2024 23:16:13 GMT -5
So, wait...
Matthew Vaughn directed this new spy movie based on a screenplay written by Jason Fuchs. Vaughn says this screenplay is "adapted from" a book that was not published at the time they made the film. Later saying that this story wasn't from the first book - which still wasn't published - but was from the 4th book in the series, none of which were published.
He then sold this movie to Apple for $200M, saying how great it was that Apple bought this, since they can do this franchise justice. *None of these alleged books were published.*
And this writer Elly Conway is fictional, and is really just a character in the film. They've made up fictional social media accounts for her.
And because Matthew Vaughn has the same breed of cat as Taylor Swift, and put his own cat in the film.... the internet now thinks that Taylor Swift wrote this book? And Vaughn made up Bryce Dallas Howard's character in the movie to look like Taylor Swift.
When what really happened is they wrote and produced the entire film, then contracted Penguin Random House to hire a writer to write the movie tie-in novel, but under a pseudonym. Basically, pretending the movie is based on a book, rather than the book being based on the movie.
So...did Vaughn quite literally lie to Apple and tell them it was based on a book because he felt he needed to claim existing IP in order to sell the movie? (And Apple execs bought this??) And he just leaned into the whole Taylor Swift part in order to exploit Swifties obsession with their idol?
Or, is Apple in on this gag? If so, do they think it is just a fun metafiction gag? Or are they purposefully obscuring this because they think the movie needs to be based on IP in order to get an audience?
Is it legal under WGA rules to claim that your original script is adapted from existing IP, when it is in fact original?
Exactly how cynical is all of this on a scale of 1-10? With 10 being the most cynical Hollywood BS ever.
I have many questions on this, clearly.
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Post by Ben Grimm on Jan 29, 2024 6:51:32 GMT -5
So, wait...
Matthew Vaughn directed this new spy movie based on a screenplay written by Jason Fuchs. Vaughn says this screenplay is "adapted from" a book that was not published at the time they made the film. Later saying that this story wasn't from the first book - which still wasn't published - but was from the 4th book in the series, none of which were published.
He then sold this movie to Apple for $200M, saying how great it was that Apple bought this, since they can do this franchise justice. *None of these alleged books were published.*
And this writer Elly Conway is fictional, and is really just a character in the film. They've made up fictional social media accounts for her.
And because Matthew Vaughn has the same breed of cat as Taylor Swift, and put his own cat in the film.... the internet now thinks that Taylor Swift wrote this book? And Vaughn made up Bryce Dallas Howard's character in the movie to look like Taylor Swift.
When what really happened is they wrote and produced the entire film, then contracted Penguin Random House to hire a writer to write the movie tie-in novel, but under a pseudonym. Basically, pretending the movie is based on a book, rather than the book being based on the movie.
So...did Vaughn quite literally lie to Apple and tell them it was based on a book because he felt he needed to claim existing IP in order to sell the movie? (And Apple execs bought this??) And he just leaned into the whole Taylor Swift part in order to exploit Swifties obsession with their idol?
Or, is Apple in on this gag? If so, do they think it is just a fun metafiction gag? Or are they purposefully obscuring this because they think the movie needs to be based on IP in order to get an audience?
Is it legal under WGA rules to claim that your original script is adapted from existing IP, when it is in fact original?
Exactly how cynical is all of this on a scale of 1-10? With 10 being the most cynical Hollywood BS ever.
I have many questions on this, clearly.
I suspect Apple knew the book was fake, and probably wouldn't have cared in any case. I've been reading about this for a little while, and it just feels like a marketing angle Vaughn decided to bake into the premise.
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Post by Desert Dweller on Jan 29, 2024 13:04:22 GMT -5
I suspect Apple knew the book was fake, and probably wouldn't have cared in any case. I've been reading about this for a little while, and it just feels like a marketing angle Vaughn decided to bake into the premise. Yeah, I was a little unclear on all of this, because the amount Apple paid wasn't grossly out of line with what they've paid to distribute other big films. So, it didn't feel like Vaughn had somehow duped them into a higher payday. And it was pretty clear this wasn't a real book. But... still, my questions remain. Are they all just running a metafictional gag, or is there someone involved who thinks a script needs to be based on existing IP in order to be successful? I think it is the way Vaughn is leaning into the whole Taylor Swift-ness of it which is increasing my feeling that this is all a cynical cash grab. If it were just the fake author, I might be more generous. Like, Matthew Vaughn doesn't seem like a director who needs any of this?
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LazBro
Prolific Poster
Posts: 10,042
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Post by LazBro on Jan 29, 2024 13:08:01 GMT -5
Every time I read "Matthew Vaughn" I think "Matthew Fox", which is weird, because I didn't even watch Lost and don't care about Matthew Fox at all. I think the only thing I've seen him in is Speed Racer.
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Post by Ben Grimm on Jan 29, 2024 14:49:31 GMT -5
I suspect Apple knew the book was fake, and probably wouldn't have cared in any case. I've been reading about this for a little while, and it just feels like a marketing angle Vaughn decided to bake into the premise. Yeah, I was a little unclear on all of this, because the amount Apple paid wasn't grossly out of line with what they've paid to distribute other big films. So, it didn't feel like Vaughn had somehow duped them into a higher payday. And it was pretty clear this wasn't a real book. But... still, my questions remain. Are they all just running a metafictional gag, or is there someone involved who thinks a script needs to be based on existing IP in order to be successful? I think it is the way Vaughn is leaning into the whole Taylor Swift-ness of it which is increasing my feeling that this is all a cynical cash grab. If it were just the fake author, I might be more generous. Like, Matthew Vaughn doesn't seem like a director who needs any of this? I think it's just a gag. It reminds me of William Goldman leaning so hard into the S. Morganstern schtick (the fake writer of The Princess Bride) that he wrote an entire second novel by him ( The Silent Gondaliers, which I actually quite liked).
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Post by Desert Dweller on Jan 29, 2024 15:04:02 GMT -5
Yeah, I was a little unclear on all of this, because the amount Apple paid wasn't grossly out of line with what they've paid to distribute other big films. So, it didn't feel like Vaughn had somehow duped them into a higher payday. And it was pretty clear this wasn't a real book. But... still, my questions remain. Are they all just running a metafictional gag, or is there someone involved who thinks a script needs to be based on existing IP in order to be successful? I think it is the way Vaughn is leaning into the whole Taylor Swift-ness of it which is increasing my feeling that this is all a cynical cash grab. If it were just the fake author, I might be more generous. Like, Matthew Vaughn doesn't seem like a director who needs any of this? I think it's just a gag. It reminds me of William Goldman leaning so hard into the S. Morganstern schtick (the fake writer of The Princess Bride) that he wrote an entire second novel by him ( The Silent Gondaliers, which I actually quite liked). Yeah, if it were a novel writer I wouldn't be asking these kinds of questions. Because there the metafictional gag would be more obviously the point. Here, though, he's saying his screenwriter adapted someone else's story, when it seems like his screenwriter alone, or Fuchs plus Vaughn came up with the story. And in the Hollywood IP age, this makes me deeply skeptical as to motives. And apparently Vaughn convinced a screenwriter to write a script but give someone else the story credit. So, this tells me that Vaughn actually had the story concept and then hired Fuchs to write the screenplay, because otherwise this actually violates WGA screenwriting credit rules. This is why I have some pointed questions here that I wouldn't have with a novel. (I'm not entirely sure it still doesn't violate WGA screenwriting rules.)
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Post by Floyd D Barber on Feb 11, 2024 11:04:41 GMT -5
We're going to see Casablanca in the theater today.
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Post by pantsgoblin on Feb 11, 2024 11:43:30 GMT -5
I just finished a (quite good) BBC miniseries from the mid-'80s called Edge of Darkness. Between this, Mitchell, and Final Justice, I swear Joe Don Baker must have had a stipulation in his contracts that he gets to wear some of the most ridiculous outfits in film. His character in the miniseries is a CIA agent who, at one point, comes back from El Salvador full on dressed like a Sandinista (beret, vest). He also sleeps in a straight-up Homer-style muumuu.
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Post by Floyd D Barber on Feb 16, 2024 16:08:44 GMT -5
Once again this year I forgot to binge the Evil Dead movies in honor of Ash Wednesday.
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Post by chalkdevil 😈 on Feb 16, 2024 16:46:06 GMT -5
Once again this year I forgot to binge the Evil Dead movies in honor of Ash Wednesday. Risen by dawn! Risen by dawn!
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Post by King Charles’s Butterfly on Feb 24, 2024 19:19:43 GMT -5
Once again this year I forgot to binge the Evil Dead movies in honor of Ash Wednesday. You can still do it on March 20th, which is Greek Ash Wednesday.
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Post by pantsgoblin on Mar 2, 2024 9:19:49 GMT -5
Apparently, Alexei Navalny was buried to the Terminator 2 soundtrack, his favorite movie, specifically the scene of Schwarzenegger being dipped in the molten metal.
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Post by rjamielanga on Mar 2, 2024 19:26:14 GMT -5
So Yesterday (2019) is on Netflix now, and I had been meaning to watch it, because the premise seemed like it could be entertaining. (Spoilers ahead)
The main character, Jack Malik, is an aspiring musician. He's shit, but has a good friend Ellie who's his manager and is willing to stick by him when he does shit gigs.
Then the inciting incident/suspension of disbelief happens: the power goes out worldwide, Jack gets hit by a bus, and when he awakens in the hospital, he's one of the few people who remember The Beatles exist.
He rerecords their songs, which the world has never heard, he gets hugely famous, he decides he can't live a lie and be without Ellie, he tells the world the truth and releases his versions of their songs into the public domain instead of cashing out in a huge record deal that (his new manager assures him) will make him the most popular recording artist of all time.
The good, or at least interesting, bits first: in some ways, as I'm sure I'm not the first to point out, the music of The Beatles is new to the world. For quite a long time, the songs couldn't be licensed for use in TV shows, until "Across the Universe" appeared in that episode of Mad Men. The rightsholders held out on releasing the music on iTunes for ages.
And although I grew up hearing The Beatles on the radio all the time on "Classic Rock" stations, I rarely hear them now. I don't have their albums, their songs aren't ubiquitous in commercials and movies. So when the covers of various Beatles songs appeared in Yesterday, they were remarkably fresh even to me. And the versions of "Help" and (this surprised me) "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" were particularly enjoyable.
The bad is the appearance of John Lennon and what he inspires Jack Malik to do. That bit I mentioned earlier, with Malik turning his back on the record deal and superstardom, is followed by a cheap and way too easy ending. He also tells Ellie, who by then is dating someone else, that he loves her. Not only does Ellie run off with him, Ellie's boyfriend is absurdly philosophical about losing his girl in front of tens of thousands of spectators.
I kind of wish Danny Boyle had done a Brazil and had that happy ending be a hallucination, with Malik either 1) losing his record deal, not getting the girl he loves, and getting sued by the record company or 2) waking up in the hospital and the world is normal, with The Beatles not having been almost completely vanished from existence.
I dunno. I still kind of enjoyed it, despite itself. Worth a watch, if you haven't revisited the music of The Beatles in a while and want to spend a couple of hours in a nostalgia trip.
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Post by chalkdevil 😈 on Mar 4, 2024 15:54:38 GMT -5
So Yesterday (2019) is on Netflix now, and I had been meaning to watch it, because the premise seemed like it could be entertaining. (Spoilers ahead)
The main character, Jack Malik, is an aspiring musician. He's shit, but has a good friend Ellie who's his manager and is willing to stick by him when he does shit gigs.
Then the inciting incident/suspension of disbelief happens: the power goes out worldwide, Jack gets hit by a bus, and when he awakens in the hospital, he's one of the few people who remember The Beatles exist.
He rerecords their songs, which the world has never heard, he gets hugely famous, he decides he can't live a lie and be without Ellie, he tells the world the truth and releases his versions of their songs into the public domain instead of cashing out in a huge record deal that (his new manager assures him) will make him the most popular recording artist of all time.
The good, or at least interesting, bits first: in some ways, as I'm sure I'm not the first to point out, the music of The Beatles is new to the world. For quite a long time, the songs couldn't be licensed for use in TV shows, until "Across the Universe" appeared in that episode of Mad Men. The rightsholders held out on releasing the music on iTunes for ages.
And although I grew up hearing The Beatles on the radio all the time on "Classic Rock" stations, I rarely hear them now. I don't have their albums, their songs aren't ubiquitous in commercials and movies. So when the covers of various Beatles songs appeared in Yesterday, they were remarkably fresh even to me. And the versions of "Help" and (this surprised me) "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" were particularly enjoyable.
The bad is the appearance of John Lennon and what he inspires Jack Malik to do. That bit I mentioned earlier, with Malik turning his back on the record deal and superstardom, is followed by a cheap and way too easy ending. He also tells Ellie, who by then is dating someone else, that he loves her. Not only does Ellie run off with him, Ellie's boyfriend is absurdly philosophical about losing his girl in front of tens of thousands of spectators.
I kind of wish Danny Boyle had done a Brazil and had that happy ending be a hallucination, with Malik either 1) losing his record deal, not getting the girl he loves, and getting sued by the record company or 2) waking up in the hospital and the world is normal, with The Beatles not having been almost completely vanished from existence.
I dunno. I still kind of enjoyed it, despite itself. Worth a watch, if you haven't revisited the music of The Beatles in a while and want to spend a couple of hours in a nostalgia trip.
I've never seen the film, but I always thought the unquestioned assumption that The Beatles songs are so inherently good that they would be massive hits totally out of time and context to be the very epitome of "Ok, Boomer." Like the top 40 radio stations in America would play "WAP" by Cardi B and just follow it up with some scruffy British dude covering "I Wanna Hold Your Hand".
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Post by Desert Dweller on Mar 5, 2024 13:57:27 GMT -5
I've never seen the film, but I always thought the unquestioned assumption that The Beatles songs are so inherently good that they would be massive hits totally out of time and context to be the very epitome of "Ok, Boomer." Like the top 40 radio stations in America would play "WAP" by Cardi B and just follow it up with some scruffy British dude covering "I Wanna Hold Your Hand". Same. I think many of the Beatles songs are inherently really good. And I've successfully converted younger friends who listen to rap and hip hop into being Beatles fans by simply asking them to listen to the albums in order. These friends ended up loving them. However, I don't think that a song being inherently good would necessarily make it a massive hit on current top 40 radio or streaming. * The whole premise of this film seems crazy to me. *Though I think the actual song "Yesterday" probably would still be a hit.
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Post by pantsgoblin on Mar 5, 2024 16:24:03 GMT -5
I've never seen the film, but I always thought the unquestioned assumption that The Beatles songs are so inherently good that they would be massive hits totally out of time and context to be the very epitome of "Ok, Boomer." Like the top 40 radio stations in America would play "WAP" by Cardi B and just follow it up with some scruffy British dude covering "I Wanna Hold Your Hand". *Though I think the actual song "Yesterday" probably would still be a hit. I'm betting, both in terms of pop's cyclical nature and those movies, we'll be returning to renewed appreciation of psychedelic Sgt. Pepper Beatles like the mid- to late-90s in coming years. So place your bets on who will be the 2020s Oases and Kula Shakers.
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Rainbow Rosa
TI Forumite
not gay, just colorful
Posts: 3,604
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Post by Rainbow Rosa on Mar 6, 2024 17:03:35 GMT -5
Everyone seemed to miss the actual joke of Yesterday's premise: the music of the Beatles is used to soundtrack the tale of... a non-white artist who becomes immeasurably, monoculturally, hegemonically famous by stealing borrowing the musical ideas and idioms of white Britons who are (literally!) displaced from musical history.
(Everyone, alas, including Richard Curtis.)
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Post by MrsLangdonAlger on Mar 9, 2024 11:46:03 GMT -5
I rewatched Poor Things last night and have a lot of thoughts about the backlash. I'll admit I know I'm primed to be annoyed by the backlash because I love the movie, so I'm biased. SPOILERS WILL ABOUND!
1. It's exhausting to live in a world where every popular thing has to get backlash, especially when the backlash can come with a tone of "you're not a moral person if you don't agree with said backlash."
2. It is absolutely accurate, of course, that Bella has the mind of a child during the entire black and white first section, and both Max and Duncan's attraction to her is gross. I think that's part of the point. But I don't buy the "this is child pornography" part of the backlash. That seems like an extreme and inaccurate reading of what we see on screen.
3. A lot of the backlash is "I can tell this woman was written by a man". I've certainly had that criticism of movies before, and often. But I'd like examples pinpointed of what Bella does that doesn't seem accurate to those folks. Is it that she finds enjoyment in casual sex? Is it willingly doing sex work?
4. This definitely isn't a feminist movie, but I don't see where it claimed to be. While I don't want to watch movies that are blatantly ANTI-feminist in tone, I also don't need every movie I watch to be actively feminist.
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Post by Desert Dweller on Mar 10, 2024 4:19:48 GMT -5
Tonight I learned that Villeneuve's film Enemy is based on Jose Saramago's novel The Double. Wow, I didn't know that at all. I haven't seen the film, but I've read the book. In the Dunc thread some of you were saying that you've seen the film. Have any of you read the novel? Curious to know what kind of an adaptation the film is.
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Post by Celebith on Mar 11, 2024 2:08:16 GMT -5
Edited to add: As an example of how film/tv doesn't need to use the biggest, most popular songs in order to convey the time period, I cited a tv series I know she watched, "Mad Men", and asked if she knew how many times the Beatles were heard on that show. That also seemed to get the point across.
A bit spoilery, but the use of 'Don't Think Twice, It's All Right' in the S1 finale was just about perfect.
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Post by Celebith on Mar 11, 2024 2:14:15 GMT -5
Walk Hard is the apotheosis of music biopics. Actors should be barred for life from oscar contention if they star in one. Most music biopics would be better if they just redubbed Walk Hard, including the music. For example, could Bohemian Rhapsody be any less accurate than it already was?
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Post by Floyd D Barber on Mar 11, 2024 12:23:51 GMT -5
Walk Hard is the apotheosis of music biopics. Actors should be barred for life from oscar contention if they star in one. Most music biopics would be better if they just redubbed Walk Hard, including the music. For example, could Bohemian Rhapsody be any less accurate than it already was? Don't get me wrong, Queen was a fantastic band, but Bohemian Rhapsody is basically a ripoff of 10cc's "One Night In Paris".
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Post by King Charles’s Butterfly on Mar 11, 2024 19:02:20 GMT -5
Beyond the Poor things backlash specifically Oscar discourse bothers me because it’s not just people’s reactions to other people’s reactions (usually dumb but kind of defensible in the Oscars’ case given that it’s a window into the industry) but also about people’s reactions to other people’s reactions to other people’s reactions. Obviously we form all our opinions in a social milieu and it’s impossible to truly escape it to form our own opinions (hey Poor things thematric resonance!) but there’s a difference between acknowledging you swim in that milieu (watching a movie), drowning in a review (basing your opinions on others’ opinions), and opening wide to welcome the water into your lungs (living for the backlash).
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Post by Celebith on Mar 11, 2024 19:14:05 GMT -5
Walk Hard is the apotheosis of music biopics. Actors should be barred for life from oscar contention if they star in one. Most music biopics would be better if they just redubbed Walk Hard, including the music. For example, could Bohemian Rhapsody be any less accurate than it already was? Don't get me wrong, Queen was a fantastic band, but Bohemian Rhapsody is basically a ripoff of 10cc's "One Night In Paris". I can sorta hear that, but BR is orders of magnitude more bombastic. Also more of a single narrative. 10cc seems underrated, overall. Also, don't google One Night In Paris without adding 10cc. No one needs to see or think about that, first thing in the morning.
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Post by MrsLangdonAlger on Mar 12, 2024 8:53:51 GMT -5
Beyond the Poor things backlash specifically Oscar discourse bothers me because it’s not just people’s reactions to other people’s reactions (usually dumb but kind of defensible in the Oscars’ case given that it’s a window into the industry) but also about people’s reactions to other people’s reactions to other people’s reactions. Obviously we form all our opinions in a social milieu and it’s impossible to truly escape it to form our own opinions (hey Poor things thematric resonance!) but there’s a difference between acknowledging you swim in that milieu (watching a movie), drowning in a review (basing your opinions on others’ opinions), and opening wide to welcome the water into your lungs (living for the backlash). I saw Buzzfeed publishing an article trying to create drama around Emma Stone...being in the bar for part of the Oscars. Look, I'm as left-wing as they come but there really are people looking to be offended at things and they should maybe shut up and reconsider their life goals.
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Post by Desert Dweller on Mar 12, 2024 18:58:23 GMT -5
I saw Buzzfeed publishing an article trying to create drama around Emma Stone...being in the bar for part of the Oscars. Look, I'm as left-wing as they come but there really are people looking to be offended at things and they should maybe shut up and reconsider their life goals. It is adorable and silly that those writers think these people stay in their seats for the entire ceremony.
I haven't heard much in the way of backlash. Of course, I stick to mainly fashion blogs in the week after the Oscars.
Also, Emma Stone winning Best Actress wasn't an upset. She won the Golden Globe, Critic's Choice and BAFTA awards. And most Oscar predicting sites had her nearly tied with Gladstone in the odds. Gladstone wasn't even nominated at the BAFTAs.
It isn't an upset if the race was considered 50/50.
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